Past Initiatives

Faculty Planning and Curricular Coherence

The Teagle Foundation launched the Faculty Planning and Curricular Coherence initiative in spring 2014 to shine the spotlight on the curriculum. The initiative was framed by the following question: How can faculty work together to create a more coherent and efficient curriculum whose goals, pathways, and outcomes are clear to students and other constituencies with a stake in the future of higher education?

faculty across over 100 campuses have participated in Curricular Coherence projects

Graduate Student Teaching in the Arts and Sciences

As part of its ongoing efforts to bring undergraduate student learning to the highest possible level, the Teagle Foundation dedicated resources towards preparing graduate students, as future faculty members, to teach effectively in a wide variety of higher education settings. Funded projects fostered collegial “communities of practice” for both faculty and graduate students around teaching and learning; enabled graduate students to examine research on learning and apply it as instructors; and established institutional plans for sustainability of these programs.

Hybrid Learning and the Residential Liberal Arts Experience

Hybrid or blended learning— a combination of on-line learning and face-to-face classes—can help institutions diversify their residential-based, “high touch” models. To be sure, face-to-face education holds benefits that are hard to replicate in online education settings. Nevertheless, institutions do not have the human resources to offer an endless variety of courses and programs, and the smaller the institution, the greater the constraints. Hybrid learning opportunities enable institutions to enrich their curricula by joining forces with other institutions and using online resources, and offer new possibilities for active learning. Over the long term, hybrid learning also offers opportunities to generate cost-savings from efficiencies in faculty classroom time, in reduced duplication of faculty lines and expertise, and in scheduling facilities. This initiative aimed to identify and support models to integrate online education into the residential liberal arts experience in ways that speak to both the quality of student learning and questions of institutional capacity and cost-savings.

of students enrolled in Teagle-supported courses have participated using hybrid modes

A Larger Vision for Student Learning: Education for Civic and Moral Responsibillity

The “Larger Vision” initiative supported curricular programs that foster among students knowledge and capabilities related to personal, civic, and moral responsibility. Funded projects included organized set of studies, such as “core courses” or “course sequences,” that enroll a significant number of students and weave together civic and moral questions in a variety of ways rather than simply serve as stand alone introductions to the disciplines. The initiative also sought to recognize effective programs that provide evidence of improvement of student learning through innovations in teaching and learning, and to create robust collaborative relationships as a way to disseminate good practices.

Faculty Work and Student Learning in the 21st Century

The “Faculty Work and Student Learning in the 21st Century” initiative was launched in 2011 to encourage university consortia to think through how faculty work can and should change in response to the changing conditions—indeed, the changing nature—of undergraduate liberal education. The premise of the initiative was that faculty work will need to be re-configured for the 21st century, in light of the fact that liberal arts education has been re-defined as an education that leads to a well-defined range of cognitive capacities and personal competencies, rather than simply as content knowledge (though that is still an expectation).

Fresh Thinking

The “Fresh Thinking” portfolio of projects encouraged clarity about the goals and objectives of majors in the disciplines, testing better means of increasing student engagement and learning in the arts and sciences, and determining whether engagement with “Big Questions” of meaning and value within the context of the disciplines can strengthen liberal arts education.

Engaging Evidence

The Engaging Evidence initiative was designed to support institutions in linking institutional priorities and decision-making processes in ways that improve student learning, with an emphasis on helping them make effective use of existing data as they enact their projects. Funded projects focused on how to use existing data to better support underrepresented students, especially in the first year; to strengthen quantitative reasoning and writing skills and enhance cultural competence; to connect academic and co-curricular experiences; and strengthen senior capstone experiences.

Outcomes and Assessment

The “Outcomes and Assessment” portfolio grew out of our conviction that nothing has as much potential to affect students' educational experience as a sustained and systematic assessment of what and how they learn. The funded projects in this area explored and synthesized recent developments in cognitive science affecting student learning and its assessment, developed iterative models of intervention and assessment to demonstrate gains in student learning over time, and developed new instruments, tools, and rubrics to capture student growth in hard-to-measure areas like analytical reasoning, and advanced the discussion on the responsibilities of presidents in assessment and in the improvement of student learning as well as the role of the governing board in the assurance of academic quality.

College-Community Connections: Phases I-V

The Teagle Foundation has long felt a special responsibility to the community within which it operates, and over the years, has contributed to a wide range of organizations that improve the college-readiness of young people in New York City.

The College-Community Connections (CCC) initiative was developed to expand college access services offered through New York City community-based organizations (CBOs) to include partnerships with colleges/universities located in the metropolitan area. The CBOs and institutions have collaborated to introduce high school students from underserved communities to liberal arts education.

While the signature feature of Teagle’s College-Community Connections (CCC) initiative unites community-based organizations (CBOs) with colleges and universities, the Foundation has maintained long-standing relationships with several individual CBOs that deliver college access programs.